Tió de Nadal and other Christmas observations

I've celebrated Christmas or part of Christmas in Australia, the USA, and Vietnam and now it is the turn of Spain or more specifically, Catalonia.

In Vietnam and the USA the Christmas resembled the one I am used to, trees, Santa Claus, Reindeers and images of Snowmen etc, Australia was almost the same except the heat on Christmas day was 100f and I ate grilled prawns in someone’s garden and drank chilled beer from a cooler.

Here in Barcelona over the past few weeks the lights have gone up, the trees are decorated and the stores are full of the signs saying Bon Nadal or Feliz Navidad depending on what language you speak. In Spain the children receive their gifts on January 6, it is a holiday called Reyes (Kings) and is the day the 3 Kings arrived to visit the baby Jesus etc. and gave him gift vouchers from M&S and Argos (or is that the British version), or something like that. In some Spanish households the children also receive some gifts on Christmas day the same as the UK and the USA but it is nice that not every culture follows the Anglo Saxon version of Christmas though here in Spain it is no less commercialized than the UK or USA.

So here in Catalonia they have their own unique Christmas tradition the Tió de Nadal or the Caga tió (shitting log), yes really, the shitting log! It is a log with a face that children feed gifts over the Christmas lead-up from December 8th to Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve the Caga tió is put on the fire and ordered to take a shit, yes, you read that correctly! Children are encouraged to beat him with a stick to increase the chances of him taking a poop. Of course, he doesn't actually poop "poop" but gifts which are usually hidden under the blanket which covers him to keep him warm during the winter nights.

The pooping log of Christmas

The tradition says that before beating the tió all the kids have to leave the room and go to another place of the house to pray asking for the tió to deliver a lot of presents. This makes the perfect excuse for the relatives to do the trick and put the presents under the blanket while the kids are praying.

The tió does not drop larger objects, as those are considered to be brought by the Three Wise Men on Reyes. He usually “leaves” sweets and candies etc . When the shit has literally been beaten out of him (I am not making this up) his finally donation is a salted fish which everyone shares. It is in some respects similar to the Piñata where children are encouraged to beat a figure to release the sweets. Christmas here is a violent event in some ways and funny. I cannot stop laughing about the shitting log and the pooping of presents. English humour meets Catalan tradition.

December 14, 2013